Biographical Data :

Iyad Allawi formally took over as un-elected prime minister of Iraq on 28 June 2004. He is charged with bringing order to the chaos after the US-led occupation of Iraq since April 2004.

Allawi’s success gives him a good chance of winning the election that must be held by the end of January 2005. If he fails he may be branded a US puppet.

Allawi, while in exile, founded the Iraqi National Accord, an opposition group of former Iraqi military and intelligence officers, and in 1996 mounted an abortive coup attempt, with the US help, against Saddam Hussein, the former dictator.

Iyad Allawi, who was born in Baghdad, is a doctor and former Ba’athist leader who emerged in May 2004 from the exile-dominated Iraqi governing council to be chosen as prime minister, the job that holds executive power in Iraq.